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China Is Not an Enemy and Shouldn't Be Provoked
William Pfaff International Herald Tribune
Thursday, April 5, 2001 PARIS
The Hainan Incident was waiting to happen. It was statistically foreseeable, given the number of years that airborne electronic surveillance of China has gone on, that a plane would go down. Aircraft have gone down elsewhere, making trouble whenever they did. One needs to ask how long it has been since Washington has made a cost-benefit analysis of this provocative practice.
It is a permanent affront to China. One can imagine the uproar in the United States if Chinese aircraft regularly patrolled just off U.S. territorial waters (or in waters of disputed sovereignty) to intercept U.S. government and commercial communications.
Imagine if the European Union were to establish permanent intelligence facilities in Cuba, Mexico or Quebec - or on ships off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts - to intercept U.S. communications. Washington would consider that a most unfriendly action.
However, the United States continues to maintain its Cold War Echelon system interception stations at bases it controls in Germany and Britain, despite protests in the European Parliament. It pays a mounting political price for this.
Full story in the International Herald Tribune
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